


This Ain't For The Best (My Reputation's Never Been Worse)

by afterandalasia



Series: repugaytion: A Descendants Femslash Songfic Series [2]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fae Mal (Disney), Movie: Descendants (2015), POV Mal (Disney), Pining, Secrets, Song: Delicate (Taylor Swift), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 11:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14933330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Fae have soulmarks.Humans don't.When the band appears around her finger, for the first time in her life, it is her fae blood that Mal hates.





	This Ain't For The Best (My Reputation's Never Been Worse)

**Author's Note:**

> [Delicate](https://open.spotify.com/track/7CneiDesUKFJO3Ix01dnfr) on Spotify
>
>>  
>> 
>> _"This ain't for the best_  
>  _My reputation's never been worse, so_  
>  _You must like me for me"_  
> 

The thing about the barrier is, it only stops magic that you _do_. Not magic that you _are_.

It can’t strip the horns from Maleficent’s head, the tentacles from Ursula’s body, the magic from Mal’s spirit. It stops the sorcerers and the witches from casting their spells, from imbuing their potions with the raw power needed to push them beyond the realms of science, from changing their forms. It doesn’t stop the magic that flares in Mal’s eyes, or the way that Maleficent’s severed wings still weep their blood, or the way that djinn power lurks beneath Jay’s skin and layers of horrified denial.

So Mal feels the burn of wings on her back, even if she cannot find the magic to unfurl them. Feels the rush of magic in her eyes as clearly as a human might feel the rush of blood in their cheeks.

She cannot escape the weight of being fae. Even if she has only half the strength, half the will, half the magic in her bones, the weight of it presses upon her. She feels it like a loss, like phantom limbs, but ghosts are more real than that which she has never had.

Her human half has always been her liability, her flaw. Her mother has explained to her how it makes her weak, makes her frail, makes her bleed when fae would not bleed and cry when fae would not cry. Her fae blood is her strength, and she clings to it, sinks her nails and her teeth into it, desperate for what she _should have been_.

Never, never, has her fae blood been her weakness.

Until the day that she finds the soulmark band upon her finger.

Humans don’t have soulmarks. They don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, are not so formed to the core by magic that it physically changes them. Humans can live without magic – do so, on the Isle, and in Auradon too if the propaganda is to be believed. But fae… if magic were truly destroyed, no fae would be left alive. They would fade from the inside out, or burn up perhaps, Mal does not know. But she feels the ache in her chest just from the barrier every single moment of her existence, and she knows that if magic were to cease, she would wither as well.

For now, though, she sits in her room and stares at the band on her right middle finger, and for the first time in her life hates the fae blood in her veins and not the human.

The band twines elegantly around the base of her finger, blood red and navy blue with glittering points of gold. It is beautiful, a tiny exquisite piece of art the sort of which no human tattoo or piece of jewellery could ever hope to match.

She knows who it is for. She barely has to look of it to think of wicked dark eyes and shining red lips, of hands that turn scraps of fabric into striking clothes and a mind that turns remnants of chemicals into modern-day potions of beauty or of pain.

Years ago, she turned away Uma at her mother’s command. There have been others, since, though none have cut so deeply. She vowed never to let someone get even so close as a friend again.

Then Evie came into her life. And now, at the peak and the nadir of her reputation, Dragon Hall cradled in one hand and the marketplace beneath her heel, she can feel web-like cracks of weakness running through her at the thought of Evie.

At the thought of love.

She covers her right hand in a glove, and vows that none will ever know.

 

 

 

 

 

The only other fae on the island is her mother. Of _course_ , Maleficent does not have a soulmark, is not so weak or so tethered to one person, is not to be guided by another’s desires.

(Sometimes, Mal dreams of her mother’s hands, but sees a blistered scar around her left index finger. Sometimes she dreams of pink and white strands, intertwined as delicately as roses. But those dreams are rare, and they always end in screams of fury, and pain, and magic and fire scouring skin from bones.)

There was never a question of her mother knowing.

So she wears her shame beneath her glove, when she punches with her right fist it is with the power of guilt and _notgoodenoughnevergoodenough_ , and she swears that for her half-fae blood she will be full-wicked.

She could try to cut it out. Dig beneath the skin and peel it away, like removing a scab only a thousand times worse. If she cauterised it with fire, it might even stay gone, although it is impossible to say whether it could truly work without magic to scour it clean.

She leaves it.

Their gang meets in back alleys, in darkness, in secret. Mal scares squatters out of an abandoned apartment over a dive bar on the east side of the island and makes it their own, painting their faces across the walls, carving their names into the stairs. The loud music covers their conversations, and pounds like a heartbeat through their bodies. They have all long since learned how to sleep no matter what the noise.

But the years have trained Mal not to need to sleep so much. She stays awake, and strokes the brilliant blue of Evie’s hair, and wonders if she has ever seen anything so beautiful, or so dangerous. Love is an iron dagger, pointed straight at her heart. It is a stone around her neck to drag her to the depths. It invites in feelings and weaknesses, and crumbles fortresses of planning.

Never make promises, Mal’s mother had taught her. Only ever make threats, and mean them.

She wonders whether it would be a threat to tell someone that she loved them. Daughter of Maleficent, scourge of Dragon Hall, and rising dark force of the Isle of the Lost. It would paint a target forever on them, a target forever on Mal’s heart.

Sometimes she runs her fingers over the soulmark, through the leather, and tells herself that the ache in her gut is nothing more than hunger or bad food. There’s plenty of both on the Isle, after all.

(But she knows hunger. And she knows that it does not hurt quite like this.)

 

 

 

 

 

She dreams of Evie’s touch, and Evie’s laugh. She dreams of stealing a kiss from those poison-red lips.

When she wakes, she swears to sleep less. She has already fallen far enough.

 

 

 

 

 

It isn’t until she is in Auradon, washing her hands in the bathroom, that she is caught. Jane enters the room, glances at Mal’s hands, and then the sharp intake of her breath says it all.

Most likely, she knows that there is meaning to each curve and line, each colour. Which finger, which hand, how many fractions of an inch wide the band is. Mal knows that there are meanings, but there are no books on the Isle which would give them to her, and it burns in her throat to ask.

But that would be a weakness, too.

“I’m so sorry,” Jane blurts, hands clutched over her mouth and eyes wide. “I didn’t realise and I just came in and I didn’t mean to stare but–”

“It’s fine,” says Mal, plainly. Shuts the door on it like she has on so many other things over the years. Because it is too fragile, too delicate, and she should not be frightened of it but weakness is the only thing which she even remotely allows herself to fear. Instead she drags her gaze deliberately over Jane’s hands in return, as she flicks the water off her fingers and pulls her glove back on. It feels tighter than usual around the soulmark. “You don’t have one.”

“Well, no, they’re pretty rare even for fae,” says Jane, and there’s a touch of _awe_ in her voice.

Mal can work with that. She cocks her head, and narrows her gaze, and runs her hand over the glove. “Really? Figured in a place as magical as Auradon, there’d be plenty of them.”

“Well, Queen Clarion and Lord Milori are _famous_ for having reciprocal soulmarks, after all?” Jane’s eyes go very wide.

Mal isn’t quite so sure what to make of the way that the words become a question on her tongue, at least for a moment. Then she grasps the _uncertainty_ , and things become a little bit clearer. She smiles, whip-sharp, and grasps the handle of the knife of words that cuts so much more easily than any blade.

“Really? That’s so _interesting_. You know, I’m glad to get to talk to you.”

The look of surprise on Jane’s face is all that she needs to reach in, in, in.

 

 

 

 

 

Jane is fae. Full-blooded fae, unlike Mal, and part of Mal wants to grab Jane and scream at her because she should be _so much more_. Mal ruled the Isle with a leather-clad fist and flashing green eyes, blades rarely, so rarely, needed. Or at least she ruled what her mother allowed her to rule, which was close enough to the same, because it was still fae blood to which the Isle knelt.

(Not that most would ever admit kneeling. But Malefient had always been good at knowing who to allow to kneel of their own accord, and who to allow to remain standing with invisible thorns waiting at their heels. It was always possible to force someone down, after all. It was just a matter of gauging whether it was worth the effort just _yet_.)

In the darkness of the night, true darkness where the curtains block out the lights outside and anyway, the sky is clear and not filled with orange-bellied clouds, she touches the soulmark on her hand and feels something twisting in her chest in response. It is an agony that makes her feel like she could vomit up her heart, but she cannot stop herself.

 

 

 

 

 

She tells herself that the soulmark does not matter when it comes to enchanting Ben. She will feel nothing for him either way, and the others know it. There can be no infidelity when there is no relationship.

It still feels like she is cheating when Ben meets her at the door to her room.

She enjoys the picnic with him, enjoys the food, enjoys talking to him more than she enjoys manipulating him and she hates it, hates it, _hates it._ She should be cruel and evil and _alone_ , it has all that she has ever been taught to aspire to, like a plant that stands alone and is not choked by weeds.

She wants to bring Evie to this place. She wants to see Evie marvel at the clear, clear water (clearer than even that which comes from the taps on the Isle, when the taps actually _work_ ) and the green, green leaves, and the beautiful way that the sunlight falls. She wants to see the light dappled across Evie’s skin and sparkling in her eyes, and evil, she wants to see Evie smile, over and over until her cheeks are aching.

But to make Evie smile, she needs to _win_. Otherwise their parents will come for them, one way or another, and it will be all the worse for every minute that they have spent away.

So she goes along with Ben, with sickness in her throat, and tries to take snatches of sleep so short that she does not have time to dream.

It is not wholly successful. It never has been. She dreams of Evie’s lips and Evie’s arms around her, and feels rising fury at this foolish love spell for putting the idea of love into her head in the first place. Ruling the world, or at least conquering it, will leave her no time for love.

All the same, she makes up the antidote cupcake, and gives it to Ben for after the ceremony. She has to at least give him a chance not to be trapped and in love with someone whom he cannot have.

She tells herself that it isn’t an act of pity.

Her blood runs cold in her veins when he cheerily informs her that he knows that she enchanted him. Her hand wraps around the handle of a knife that is not there, that she cannot carry in Auradon, and she reaches for her magic with a dangerous certainty.

But Ben’s smile is calm, and slightly sad. “It’s okay, I get it. I should have taken into consideration how it would look to you that I was dating Sleeping Beauty’s daughter. Like I was just doing this to humiliate you all, or something.”

“What?” says Mal, breathlessly. Her magic is racing beneath her skin, and the makeup that she has painstakingly used to cover her soulmark seems to trickle down her finger. Ben looks down at their still-clasped hands, and his thumb brushes the make-up away. Mal’s throat goes dry.

(The only person who could have covered it properly was Evie. The irony was not lost on Mal.)

“I should thank you, really. We’d been trying to figure out a way to break up for a while, but… parental pressure.” He gives an awkward shrug, like she doesn’t know about parental pressure, and she supposes that what she knows is the inverse. Like Maleficent was pulling, not pushing, and forcing her away from everyone rather than towards someone. “She’s mad about how I did it. I’ll need to make that up to her. But we’ll figure it out.”

“That’s not…” Mal begins, feeling helpless, and strangely like her words have deserted her. She has studied Latin, and old Celtic, and the ancient languages of magic, and somehow she cannot find anything to say to Ben at all.

There is something wary in his smile, like he is still hoping that he can find some way to please her. As if he has any reason to. “When you jumped in the water after me, I saw it. Does she know?”

Mal shakes her head.

Ben looks like he’s about to say something, but then the carriage has arrived, and she is out of choices.

 

 

 

 

 

There have never been choices, on the Isle. They never had a choice about where they were born, when, to whom. They never had a choice about what they ate, if they wanted to eat at all; never had a choice about wearing clothes pieced together from rags, about wearing armour pieced together from anger.

To follow your parent’s rules, or die, is not a choice. To fight, and become wicked, or die, is not a choice.

For the first time in her life, Mal holds choice in her hands, and they shake with the weight of it.

She chooses good. The rules that have bound them crumble.

 

 

 

 

 

Evie takes her hands, later that night, while the party is building. Then she does a double-take at the soulmark visible on Mal’s hand, visible for the first time in all of the years that she has borne it.

“Is that…”

“Yes,” Mal says, one simple word and she manages to stop it from shaking, but it does not stop the vulnerability that rips through her like a gale. That tears at the wings beneath her skin and the faerie fire in her eyes and the claws beneath her nails. She can feel her magic billowing and snapping inside her like a sail barely tethered, a sail that has been used to finding no wind at all and which now finds itself straining. The magic in the air of Auradon is giddying, and the fear of Evie knowing almost cuts her loose altogether.

Only the hands, in hers, anchor her still.

“It’s beautiful,” says Evie, her eyes on the mark.

Mal’s eyes trace the line of Evie’s cheekbone. “It is,” she agrees.

Evie looks up and catches her eye, and for a fraction of a second she thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , she has hidden a truth in a lie once again. But this is Evie, the one of all of them who can hear through her walls and see through her mirages, and as Evie’s hands squeeze hers, Mal realises that it is both of them that are trembling.

“I can’t promise you a kingdom,” Mal blurts out. The words that she has wanted to say to Evie for so long spill from her. “I can’t promise you a crown, or a banner of knights, or ladies-in-waiting to serve on you hand and foot.”

“I don’t want promises,” Evie says. Mal could drown in her eyes. “I just want you, M.”

“You’ve always had me.”

 

 

 

 

 

The fireworks burst overhead, and there is whooping and cheering, but Mal does not care as Evie presses a kiss to her lips. And it isn’t a happy ending, because it is never an end; how can a first kiss ever be an end, when there is a whole world left to find?

They have no promises to make, no oaths to swear. They are children of the Isle, scarred and weathered and survivors, and Mal can see now what it is to be fae, or to be human, and sees the path starting to unfold before her of what it means to be neither.

But she will find it, with Evie’s hand in hers, and the soulmark on her finger glitters with magic in the darkness. Magic that it had never known on the Isle, magic that she has never felt before. And yet, magic that feels like nothing besides Evie’s kiss. And Mal cradles the delicate feelings to her chest, and smiles, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, Ben might have helped them to save themselves after all.


End file.
